Philosophy Discussion Forums

“Death anxiety is a complicated construct. It is experienced with variable severity during one’s life. Individuals react and cope with death anxiety in their own way... Death anxiety/fear is defined as the dread of death, the horror of physical and mental deterioration, the essential feeling of aloneness, the ultimate feeling of aloneness, the ultimate feeling of separation anxiety, sadness about the eventual loss of self and extremes of anger and despair about a situation over which people have no control.

The relationship between death anxiety and religious belief seems to be too complex to provide a simple pattern of findings... Death-related teachings are differ, and believers may take different messages from the same basic doctrine... Dennis Yoshikawa, a Shin Buddhist, explained that according to Shin Buddhist teaching, “to solve the problem of death, one must first solve the problem of life, living life. If one is able to do that, to live a truly human life, then there’s nothing to be feared by the experience of death, because the experience of death is a natural part of life.”...

Overall, death anxiety is influenced by a variety of factors such as religiosity, and spirituality, which can effect on mental health. Using religious spiritual approaches can reduce death anxiety and improve mental health.”
https://austinpublishinggroup.com/psych ... id1061.php

Trust definition: “If you trust in someone or something, you believe strongly in them, and do not doubt their powers or their good intentions.”

Most people are nice while other individuals are mean. Hopefully, the sum total of goodness in the world is greater than the amount of evil and cruelty. So whether or not there exists an omnibenevolent entity, there may at least be a residual benevolent spirit. It may be that believing the universe to be at its base, well-intentioned, will help allay our fear of death and mortality. Death will of course be unavoidably painful. But perhaps by having trust in an existent baseline goodness, we can counteract the awe and mystery of death.

Benevolence definition: “The quality of being well meaning; kindness.”

What is your background Mike?
If you don't mind me asking?

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑October 21st, 2020, 1:03 pm .... It may be that believing the universe to be at its base, well-intentioned, will help allay our fear of death and mortality. Death will of course be unavoidably painful. But perhaps by having trust in an existent baseline goodness, we can counteract the awe and mystery of death.
...

The best evidence suggests that your mind is simply a subset of the actions of the brain. This is why, for example, consuming alcohol affects one's mind, because alcohol gets into the brain and affects the actions there. There has also been a great deal learned from people with brain injuries, about how part of their minds can be gone in very strange and interesting ways. One of the books of Oliver Sacks would be a good introduction to some of these ideas, like The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat. So, if one's mind is a subset of the actions of your brain, when your brain stops doing things, you will cease to exist. So there is no afterlife according to the best available evidence. The year 2200 will be for you just what the year 1800 was for you, which is, nothing at all.

This, by the way, is not a new idea, though it is supported by the best currently available evidence. The philosopher Epicurus had basically the same view of things thousands of years ago (though he did not localize the mind to the brain):

2) Death is nothing to us, because a body that has been dispersed into elements experiences no sensations, and the absence of sensation is nothing to us.

http://epicurism.info/etexts/PD.html

Death is no concern to us. All things good and bad are experienced through sensation, but sensation ceases at death. So death is nothing to us, and to know this makes a mortal life happy. Life is not improved by adding infinite time; removing the desire for immortality is what’s required. There is no reason why one who is convinced that there is nothing to fear at death should fear anything about it during life. And whoever says that he dreads death not because it’s painful to experience, but only because it’s painful to contemplate, is foolish. It is pointless to agonize over something that brings no trouble when it arrives. So death, the most dreaded of evils, is nothing to us, because when we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we do not exist. It neither concerns the living nor the dead, since death does not exist for the living, and the dead no longer exist.

http://epicurism.info/etexts/Lives.html#I40

The process of dying may or may not be painful, depending on what, exactly, happens to one. But being dead will be painless. Not existing anymore is not a problem. Just like not existing in the past was not a problem for you. Nothing bad happened to you in the year 1800, and nothing bad will happen to you in the year 2200. You have literally nothing to worry about in being dead.


People who believe the stories of primitive peoples, about an afterlife, are often full of fear about death. Although people often try to sell religion as a way to avoid worrying about death, the opposite is often the case. For example, in traditional Christianity, if one messes up, one is to be condemned to eternal torture in hell. That would be a frightening idea, which obviously is not a comfort. Fortunately, there is no reason to believe in an afterlife at all (indeed, the evidence suggests that an afterlife is impossible), and one may simply dismiss such tales as the imaginings of primitive people, which is what it is.

Definition of infinitesimal: “Of or pertaining to values that approach zero as a limit.”

Perhaps a more mystical way of interpreting the concept of God would be through a timeless infinitesimal rather than an infinity. In this way everyone could be equally imbued with spirituality. This wouldn’t discredit the wisdom of traditional teachings because some historical people may have indeed been more attuned and enlightened in existential matters.

Michael McMahon

Perhaps a more mystical way of interpreting the concept of God would be through a timeless infinitesimal rather than an infinity. In this way, everyone could be equally imbued with spirituality. This wouldn’t discredit the wisdom of traditional teachings because some historical people may have indeed been more attuned and enlightened in existential matters.

It is difficult to fathom how something could be eternal. Due to the nature of our reality, people think linearly; cause and effect. It is problematic for the mind to comprehend in a linear way that something could exist that is uncaused, as the prime mover argument, because that is not the nature of our reality. Therefore naturally, there is no empirical evidence for such a being. If such a being exists, it would be outside of our known reality or in other words, what we perceive as reality through what methods of testing that are available to us. Whether that implies that a being that like God (in any doctrine) does not exist I’m not sure. But if in our reality, there is no empirical example of anything that is uncaused, even if that term is fuzzy, then it is understandable that people don’t believe that there is a God. With regards to people enlightened in existential matters, many people make that claim, how can we know who is genuinely enlightened, and who is not, except by accepting the word of the one that has the most similitude with our world view. If a supposedly enlightened person told us everything we believe is false, even though we had firm reasons to believe what we do, would we consider that person to be enlightened?

Old thread but for some reason it's catching my attention a bit.

I can't really reach a closed conclusion with this one because I have trouble with the question of what pantheism really means when it comes down to it. It's tough for example to take seriously that in all of existence there'd just be this universe as far as places or things go, unless one wants to perhaps be a universe / brane polytheist. Even if the whole universe is riddled with non-neurological consciousness it's tricky as to whether one would want to call it 'God' if it's not cognitively self-aware of the levels we're at, a bit like if the Milky Way were, at scale, some microscopic portion of an organelle in a cell in it's big toe. For me a super-organism and God in the way people mean it are very different things. To me pantheism and panentheism would fall back more on a super-organism POV, in which one could perhaps call it atheism for animists and panpsychists, which is somewhat where I'd identify where I've landed myself.

One of the challenges with seeing consciousness not on neurons is that it's the only place where we actually have some idea of how to put an immediate yardstick to it. The only other thing I can think of, neuron-like structure, seems to pop-up in places like highway and telecom networks, slime mold search pathways for food, and obviously stranger and larger places still that most reputation-conscious people would hardly want to say much about. There are a lot of other odd things that make me question reductive materialism, but at the same time I do see where Darwinian evolution is the front and center force so I'd hazard a guess that most forms of consciousness outside of ourselves and biological organisms, as we may find them in the future, came about by similar rules but different fitness environments. The criticism I'd throw back against some of what I just said is that biology is the only place where we're seeing heritability along with differential success or durability so while there might be signs of the later in what we've thought of previously as non-sentient or non-conscious systems those same systems don't show signs of self-replication or sexual selection that we know of. Could that frame be too small? Maybe but... I wouldn't feel comfortable trying to jump that particular gap.

Some people have also brought up fear of death with some people's orientations to these ideas - possibly but fear of death saturates literally everything for almost everyone, and it tends to be a very subconscious rather than conscious thing where just about anyone who'd deny it just needs to be narrowly miss getting hit by a bus or train, or narrowly miss a fatal car wreck, and see where that leaves them. It might perhaps explain people's endurance with lack of facts on some things, I think it certainly explains a lot of people's politics as well as combative and aggressive behaviors in the social and work worlds, it doesn't explain some of the paradoxes physicalism runs into (such as conscious experience being possible at all) nor some of the edge cases that keep the question open as to the information, consciousness, and ontological status of the broader universe. Then again none of that speaks in favor of there being a God necessarily, perhaps more of a potential nod to animism but that's about as far as you can take it.

Papus79: “ Some people have also brought up fear of death with some people's orientations to these ideas - possibly but fear of death saturates literally everything for almost everyone, and it tends to be a very subconscious rather than conscious thing where just about anyone who'd deny it just needs to be narrowly miss getting hit by a bus or train, or narrowly miss a fatal car wreck, and see where that leaves them.”

I don’t know what happens after death. I generally believe in reincarnation. But I think the concept of reincarnation might be able to incorporate elements of other ideas. For example, I don’t think reincarnation is instantaneous. I don’t think we die and simply wake up a few hours later as someone else. That would be too hectic. So I tend to view reincarnation as a very gradual process. I don’t think it’s as slow as endless oblivion though. Permanent oblivion might get overly repetitive! But maybe there’s an extended period of unconsciousness and rest until we dream our way into another life. There’s nearly infinite number of non-human animal and fish life. So the very fact that you were born a human means that there must be some unconscious force that guides your creation. Otherwise if reincarnation were purely random and blind where animal and human lives were assigned an equal chance then the likelihood of ever being a human are too infinitesimally small. The existence of heaven is beset by other problems. Can happiness exist independently of pain? Is it psychologically possible to be happy for an infinite length of time? I don’t think so. But perhaps there might be a temporary trance during death. There’s plenty of reports of near death experiences. So maybe you can metaphorically be at one with whatever spiritual beliefs you have for a limited length of time. For example, our awareness of mantras and prayers could be heightened during death as we lose awareness and memory of previous events. It’d be like a self-fullfilling prophecy. If mind-altering drugs can cause such huge effects by merely altering a few neurochemicals, then the dying neurons might hopefully result in some sort of transcendent experience for a brief length of time.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑February 2nd, 2021, 1:21 pm I don’t think it’s as slow as endless oblivion though. Permanent oblivion might get overly repetitive! But maybe there’s an extended period of unconsciousness and rest until we dream our way into another life.

Oblivion in the way most reductive materialists think of it means there's no perceiver to find it repetitive and no dreamer to dream its way into a new life.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑February 2nd, 2021, 1:21 pmThere’s nearly infinite number of non-human animal and fish life. So the very fact that you were born a human means that there must be some unconscious force that guides your creation. Otherwise if reincarnation were purely random and blind where animal and human lives were assigned an equal chance then the likelihood of ever being a human are too infinitesimally small.

There probably are rules but we don't have particularly good reason to believe that we understand them. About the only thing that's come to light a bit is that sometimes children with past life memories of who they were, if it's verified by family members of the deceased person, sometimes they'll have marks on their bodies related to their death or even facial deformities if they were shot in the head. It seems to point to something akin to Rupert Sheldrake's morphic resonance or what 19th and 20th century western occultists referred to as etheric bodies (what it actually is - who knows). From there I think we know too little at this point to consider how commonly or how uncommonly people would shift out of being human. There's some suggestion, at least from what I mentioned above, that it's not unusual for a person to come back as a person and we don't really have any reason to believe that there are fixed intervals either - it could be ten or twenty years, it could be hundreds, we just tend not to have as many people with really old past life memories that we can check up on.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑February 2nd, 2021, 1:21 pmThe existence of heaven is beset by other problems. Can happiness exist independently of pain? Is it psychologically possible to be happy for an infinite length of time? I don’t think so.

Speaking in the specifically modern Christian sense sure, it's loaded with various kinds of difficulty. I suppose if your existence is a lot like rolling your face off on MDMA all the time and the number of things you can do are almost limitless there might be something to be said of state of mind and how that frame affects the wear and tear that we typically feel in a Darwinian fitness landscape of the sort we're in.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑February 2nd, 2021, 1:21 pmBut perhaps there might be a temporary trance during death. There’s plenty of reports of near death experiences. So maybe you can metaphorically be at one with whatever spiritual beliefs you have for a limited length of time. For example, our awareness of mantras and prayers could be heightened during death as we lose awareness and memory of previous events. It’d be like a self-fullfilling prophecy. If mind-altering drugs can cause such huge effects by merely altering a few neurochemicals, then the dying neurons might hopefully result in some sort of transcendent experience for a brief length of time.

From the time I've spent with NDE literature and listening to experiencers - it seems to rather strongly suggest something like a Neoplatonist panentheism where the sort of 'heaven' they visit matches what Rudolph Steiner referred to as Lower Devachan and it's a temporary stop. We're stuck in a place where, if we take the gestalt of those experiences seriously (as well as how little they tend to tell us) and also weigh that against a lot of Jacques Vallee's observations of the control matrix as he put it where all communications are strictly pragmatic (you understand them by their results rather than their content) then you're dealing with something that's trying to keep us face down in this particular context, knowing little more than 'this', and applying subtle modification to the broader human condition.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am Pantheism is "a doctrine which identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God". I find myself agreeing a lot with pantheism. I think it has many advantages over traditional theism.

Identifying, or defining, 'God' with the Universe, in the visible sense, is the ONLY way God works, and works PERFECTLY I will add.

But once ANY thing is 'indoctrinated' or used in relation to an 'ism' word, like "pantheism" for example, then that will NOT work.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am For starters I find it hard to conceive of a truly external omnipotent God.

The very reason WHY you or ANY one else finds it hard to conceive of an external God, is because that is an IMPOSSIBILITY and could NEVER work.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am How could God have free will if he must always be good?

The visible physical Universe does NOT have 'free will' as thee One and ONLY Universe is ALWAYS caused or created, or in other words is IN CREATION, constantly.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am How do we know this God isn't temperamental?

But if you are going to say that the Universe is identified as God, then this God is NOT temperamental. This is because physical matter itself is NOT temperamental. Human beings might appear temperamental but this is because there are internal feelings/emotions WITHIN, which are expressed through physical human behavior.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am Then we'd be left with the problem of the "evil demon" or the "deceiving god" who could capriciously put us in hell.

There is God, in the visible sense. And,
There is God, in the non visible sense.

There is what is called 'hell'. And,
There is what is called 'heaven'.

When these things are FULLY comprehended AND understood, then this ALL WORKS PERFECTLY.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am I think there are also problems with the idea of heaven. It's a very hedonistic concept. I don't think eternal life is psychologically possible even if it were physically possible.

Thinking that 'heaven' is in relation to one person is an EXTREMELY hedonistic concept in and of itself. And because human beings are taught to think that 'heaven' (and 'hell') is in relation to them, personally, then this is WHY most human beings are still so TOTALLY CONFUSED on these issues here.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am Surely one would eventually get exhausted and mentally fatigued by the accumulative stress of living thousands of years!

But in 'heaven' there is NO 'stress'.

In fact, in Life, there is NO 'stress' as well. Although this is VERY CONTRADICTORY to POPULAR BELIEF, in the days of when this is being written.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am Also, there's a difference between wisdom and knowledge! Wisdom appears to be more visceral. So would an omniscient God have any true wisdom? Indeed, could an omnipotent entity feel any pain at all?

This is WHERE one NEEDS to LEARN the difference between 'God' in the visible (physical) sense from 'God' in the non visible (Spiritual) sense.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am Pantheism, on the other hand, avoids these pitfalls. It's simply the belief that a single energy lives through all conscious entities.

And if you fall for the trap of BELIEVING 'one thing', then you are NOT OPEN to ANY thing else different to 'that thing'.

Why could a single energy NOT live through all the non conscious entities also?

Also, what exactly is, and is NOT, a 'conscious entity'?

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am It's not solipsistic as everyone is separated by the totality and completeness of death. Rather it's a monistic idea that asserts that we're all interconnected and derivative from the same infinite entity.

This is really it's sole tenet which means that it doesn't lend itself to any unjustified dogmatic beliefs.[/quote]

Yet 'pantheism' like ALL 'isms' HAVE a BELIEF. As you just SHOWED above.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am It's perfectly compatible with humility as there are other reasons to be humble besides one's belief in a certain God.

The problem of evil is really a separate debate.

There is NO ACTUAL 'problem' of 'evil'. As some people BELIEVE there is.

Work out what the definition of 'problem' is and then, by definition, there is NO actual 'problem' here.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am (I think there may be a small degree of indirect justice in the fact evil people often attack other evil people).

And judging some people as being 'evil' and some "others" as 'not being evil' is part of the reason WHY human beings are still living in a 'hell' like existence, in the days of when this was being written.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am The best thing about pantheism is that the golden rule naturally follows from a belief that we're all sort of associated. The golden rule is "the principle of treating others as one's self would wish to be treated".

This may well be a 'golden' or 'good' rule, but it is also a 'broken' rule, which could NEVER REALLY work.

There NEEDS to be a provision or caveat added, to make that 'golden' rule a PERFECT rule.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 am Any thoughts?

Everything I have said above can be backed up and supported. That is; If ANY one is truly interested.

Consul wrote: ↑May 27th, 2019, 6:04 pm

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 25th, 2019, 6:44 amPantheism, on the other hand, avoids these pitfalls. It's simply the belief that a single energy lives through all conscious entities.

What's the point of calling such a(n impersonal) cosmic energy a god or God?!

"[P]antheism is a concept that invalidates itself, since the concept of a God presupposes as its essential correlative a world different from him. If, on the other hand, the world itself is to take over his role, there remains simply an absolute world without God, and so pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism. …But even the assumption of some cause of the world different therefrom is still not theism. For this demands a world-cause that is not only different from the world, but is intelligent, that is to say, knows and wills, and so is personal and consequently also individual; it is only such a cause that is indicated by the word 'God'. An impersonal God is no God at all, but merely a word wrongly used, a misconception, a contradictio in adjecto, a shibboleth for professors of philosophy, who, having had to give up the thing, are anxious to slip through with the word."

(Schopenhauer, Arthur. "Fragments for the History of Philosophy." In Parerga and Paralipomena. Vol. 1. 1851. Translated by E. F. J. Payne. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974. pp. 114-5)

If ANY one presupposes that God is a "he" or "him", then they obviously have a VERY DISTORTED "world view".

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 28th, 2019, 5:15 am Thanks very much for the replies.

I actually attended a Buddhist mindfulness retreat before and I very much enjoyed it. But I'd have to do more research on more of their beliefs before I call myself a Buddhist.

I might have been referring more towards the usual contemporary religions like Christianity and Judaism rather than traditional or classical theism. Sorry for the confusion.

I think there are problems with free will compatibalism when applied to God. I think if something deterministically made God make the universe then it is really that deterministic element that comes before God.

One must also consider the free will defence of evil in theodicy. If we must all have the potential to do evil in order have free will; why does this potential to do evil not apply to God? It's the free will argument in reverse.

But who says this potential to do even does not apply to God?

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 28th, 2019, 5:15 am In terms of wisdom I think it entails experience and understanding. I could watch a war movie on television and know everything about it, but that doesn't give me the right to call myself a soldier!

I think we have nothing to lose by believing in Pantheism. It doesn't go against Science.

But WHY believe ANY thing?

Do you feel a necessity to believe things?

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 28th, 2019, 5:15 am With regard to pain I fail to see how an invincible hyper-resilient entity could be affected by hurt.

Just because one experiences/feels some thing like pain or hurt, this does NOT necessarily mean that that one is then actually affected by pain nor hurt, in the sense that they could NOT then control what to do next.

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 28th, 2019, 6:29 am Would there be much adrenaline and excitement in heaven though seeing as there are no personal risks involved?

Where did the absurd notion that in heaven there are NO personal risks involved?

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑May 28th, 2019, 6:59 am Also, why would God waste BILLIONS of years and countless human lives creating this world when he could have just made a perfect world to begin with (Adam and Eve aside)?

BILLIONS of years and countless human lives, in relation to eternity AND infinity is so minuscule it is REALLY not even worth talking about.

Also, thee PERFECT world is ALREADY created. If human beings have rearranged this in some way, then that is of their own doing.

Also, because of the way human beings learn and understand, and become Truly wiser, human beings have evolved the way the have, to MAKE MISTAKES.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 1:28 pm

Michael McMahon wrote: ↑June 4th, 2019, 6:11 am I think Pantheism works well with a sense of spirituality. As everything would be connected...

Woulda shoulda coulda.

We are clearly not connected. We are only united in confusion, conflict and misunderstanding.

Therefore, the 'we', human beings, ARE united, and thus connected, in some way/s.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑June 7th, 2019, 1:28 pm Take a look at the world news

Hereandnow wrote: ↑June 6th, 2019, 11:29 am

Consul (and Julian Carax?) "[P]antheism is a concept that invalidates itself, since the concept of a God presupposes as its essential correlative a world different from him. If, on the other hand, the world itself is to take over his role, there remains simply an absolute world without God, and so pantheism is only a euphemism for atheism. …

Schopenhauer is right, the concept of God does presuppose something other than the concept 'nature' provides. But the to say, as the word does, that all is God does not reduce all to nature, it "reduces" all of nature to God, and this subsumes the former under the latter, and insists that in interpreting nature (or, the world) is done through an interpretation of God. One does not, therefore, trivialize pantheism by thinking observing the world and inferring the nature of God; rather, one considers the concept of God and infers the nature of the world. Vastly different things.

If 'all is God' does not reduce 'all to nature'.

Then name what is NOT 'nature/natural'.

If this can NOT be done, logically, soundly, nor validly, all is reduced to nature, naturally.